Turns out, “awe” is intriguing to many, as evidenced by the couple hundred viewers who turned out for the opening reception on Sept. 13, of the Middlebury College Museum of Art’s new exhibit “An Invitation to Awe.” That’s not surprising to curator and Associate Professor of the History of Art and Architecture Katy Smith Abbott, who is likewise inspired by this broad topic.

For Smith Abbott, her interest in awe bloomed after the sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” by Christie’s in 2017.

“At first I was dismissive,” Smith Abbott said, until Pieter Broucke (Professor of History of Art & Architectural Studies) shared a film from Christie’s with her and their department. “The camera was trained on the viewers seeing the painting… These people were experiencing something profound… They were slowing down; there is awe here.”

Smith Abbot began to wonder: Do we experience awe anymore? Is it informed by our studies, our experiences? Where does awe live now? What is it born out of?

She started buying coffee for friends and colleagues who would sit with her and tell her about their understandings of awe…. Now, some seven years later, her exploration of awe has come to fruition in this new exhibit.

The exhibit is organized in the main upstairs gallery space of the museum into what Smith Abbott calls “studios of awe.” There’s the darker or more terrifying forms of awe, the sacred, the tiny and invisible, the sound, the natural world, scientific discoveries, and finally, humanity.

Photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher’s work can be found in the studio of the tiny and invisible. Two microphotographs from her “Tears” collection were purchased for this exhibit. Fisher describes them as “momentary landscapes of emotional terrain.”

“I shed tears on a glass slide” Fisher explained in a written interview this week. “I either let them air-dry, or cover the tears with a thin glass slide which compresses the tear in-between. I view these through an optical microscope that has a digital microscopy camera attached to it.”

For this series, Fisher saved her tears for eight years. “As you might imagine,” she continued, “the series comprises a very wide spectrum of emotions, from grief to laughing, elation to onions… I was interested to have deeper awareness of the nuances of my own emotions; saving my tears was a way of paying closer attention to what I was feeling and what those tears were showing me. And that our tears link us to one another, throughout humanity.”

Awesome.

Fisher will be in town to give an artist talk (free and open to all) on Friday, Nov. 1, at 12:30 p.m., followed by a light lunch (suggested $5 donation) in the Mahaney Arts Center, Room 221 and lower lobby. Just in case you were wondering, Fisher’s earliest memory of awe was watching “perfect snowflakes falling, so gently.”

Smith Abbott definitely struck a chord with this one. See for yourself by the many comment cards hanging from little tags as you exit the exhibit. They’re notes from visitors sharing their own memories of awe — birth, death, the natural world, music, sensations and more. Your invitation to awe is waiting… Visit before the exhibit closes on Dec. 8. Museum admission is free and open to all.